Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
www.innercitypress.com/iccprstdies120707.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 7 -- With a whimper in the Security Council on Friday, a proposed statement on Darfur, supporting the call by International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo for Sudan to arrest two ICC indictees, died on the vine. Thursday it was said that China had asked for changes to the draft. Friday morning, a diplomat from another Permanent Five member of the Council said that China was "gutting" the proposed statement so much that their might be no statement at all.
When Inner City Press asked Moreno-Ocampo about this, late Friday morning, he said that the statement was coming out soon, he'd been told. Sudan's Ambassador, on the other hand, told Inner City Press that the opponents of the draft included not only China, but also Qatar. South Africa, he said, would also be opposed, but as a state party to the ICC, felt a need to take a different position.
At one p.m., Council president Marcello Spatafora stepped to the stakeout microphone and spoke about Cyprus. After asking unsuccessfully if the issue of Northern Cyprus' "isolation" had been discussed in the Council, Inner City Press asked Amb. Spatafora about the status of the ICC statement. Amb. Spatafora read from notes that sounded suspiciously like a version of the draft statement. Video here. Inner City Press asked, so has the statement been adopted? No, Amb. Spatafora said, arguing that what Council members had said after Moreno-Ocampo's briefing had been "so clear" that no statement, it turned out, was necessary. But why had one been proposed?
Later, Inner City Press asked a Council diplomat if it would be fair to say that the draft had been so watered down that the initial proponents no longer wanted it. You got that right, the diplomat answered, insisting that this be not for attribution. And so it goes in the UN Security Council...
